The skating rink was closing. The lights above the ice blinked twice, and Alisa began gliding backward with her arms spread wide, looking like someone whose life was going wonderfully. Yegor hobbled after her, clinging to the barrier and pretending it was part of his strategy. The ice crunched beneath their skates as the music faded through its final chorus.
“Four falls in one hour,” Alisa announced. “Today you weren’t a figure skater. You were a sack of apricots.”
“I had everything under control.”
“You had the ice under control. With your face.”
“For your information, I fell beautifully,” Yegor declared. “Artistically.”
They laughed in the changing room, got tangled in their laces, and nudged each other with their elbows. At home, Alisa made pancakes using her grandmother’s recipe while Yegor stole them straight from the frying pan and got smacked on the fingers with a wooden spatula.
Life was warm, round, and delicious. There were no cracks around the edges.
A week later, their entire noisy group of friends gathered at Nikita’s place. Yegor sat at the head of the table, shining like a freshly polished coin.
“Guys, you have no idea what kind of woman I married,” he said, raising his glass. “She graduated with honors. A red diploma! Not bought, not begged for. Earned.”
“Yegor, enough,” Alisa laughed. “A little more of this and you’ll show everyone my ninth-grade report card.”
“I will. There’s only one B on it, and that was in physical education—and even that was unfair.”
“It was fair. I couldn’t jump over the vaulting horse.”
“But you certainly know how to jump over people’s heads,” Nikita blurted out.
“Only my own,” Alisa replied. “Jumping over other people’s heads is a sport with consequences.”
They took a taxi home, with Yegor dozing against her shoulder.
He was proud of his wife loudly, enthusiastically, and preferably in front of witnesses. He liked being the husband of a smart woman.
As long as her intelligence was merely a picture in a frame rather than a living person actually going somewhere.
On Thursday, Alisa took off her boots in the hallway and casually said:
“They’re transferring me to another office. Starting Monday.”
“What do you mean? Is it far?”
“Across the whole city. I’ll have to get up at six-thirty and probably won’t get home until around eight.”
“So I’m barely going to see you?”
“You’ll see me. In the evenings, on weekends, and in your dreams.” She kissed him. “I’m not leaving on an expedition to the North Pole.”
Yegor nodded.
He smiled.
And for some reason, he spent the entire evening clicking through television channels without stopping on a single one.
On Saturday, he visited his mother, and Raisa Pavlovna immediately noticed the sour expression around his mouth.
“What happened?” she asked while arranging little dishes on the table. “You look as though somebody shortchanged you.”
“Alisa’s been transferred. Now she’s hardly ever home.”
“Exactly,” his mother said, sitting opposite him and propping her cheek on one hand. “I’ve always said, why push yourself so hard? You have an apartment, don’t you? Yes. Her father gave it to her. You have a car? Yes. Again, thanks to her father. Just live and enjoy yourselves.”
“She says she finds the work interesting.”
“Interesting,” Raisa Pavlovna snorted. “A woman should find things interesting at home. Her father is a senior department head, so she follows his example. And then you’re the one running around heating up your own dinner.”
“For your information, I know how to heat up dinner.”
“But you shouldn’t have to, Yegor darling. You shouldn’t.”
He returned home carrying that phrase in his pocket like a stone.
Alisa was sitting on the floor surrounded by papers, marking something with a pencil. Her hair was pinned up with a pen, her socks didn’t match, and there was a streak of marker on her cheekbone.
“Isn’t this enough already?” Yegor began as soon as he walked through the door. “This is your second straight day at home buried in paperwork. Do you seriously think this is normal?”
“Absolutely. It would be abnormal if I were buried in paperwork in the elevator.”
“I don’t find that funny. I never see you.”
“You’re looking at me right now. Here I am, wearing mismatched socks. Enjoy.”
“Alisa!”
“Yegor.” She put down the pencil. “What do you want me to do? Quit my job and put my honors diploma on a shelf for three years? A diploma isn’t jam. It doesn’t get sweeter the longer you store it.”
“I want a wife, not a train timetable.”
“The wife comes as part of the package. This workload will be over in a month.”
He went into the other room, slamming the door slightly harder than he had intended.
Then, on Wednesday, Alisa caught him in the hallway, grabbed him playfully by the ears, and announced with a glowing smile:
“Pack your suitcase. We’re flying to Paris in April. Five days.”
“Where?!”
“Paris. France. You know, that city with the big iron tower.”
“Are you serious?”
“The tickets are already bought. The hotel is by the river. I even promise you unlimited croissants.”
Every trace of Yegor’s irritation dissolved in a second, like sugar in boiling water.
He swept her into his arms and spun her around the hallway, knocking over the coat rack. They ended up sitting on a pile of coats, both laughing.
Raisa Pavlovna reacted rather differently to the news.
“Paris?” she repeated in a tone suggesting they had announced plans to move into a shack. “Do you have any idea how much that costs? What are you, millionaires?”
“Mom, relax. Alisa paid for everything. With her bonus.”
The silence that followed was long.
Raisa Pavlovna straightened the tablecloth, then adjusted a vase, then straightened the tablecloth again.
“With her bonus, you say…” she drawled. “She must get very generous bonuses, Yegor darling. Enough for two tickets abroad.”
“So?”
“Nothing. It’s just that bonuses like that aren’t handed out for nothing.”
“Mom, what are you talking about?”
“Nothing, nothing. Go and enjoy yourselves.”
And they did.
For the next two weeks after they came home, Yegor told his friends about sitting beneath chestnut trees, touring art galleries, and staying in a hotel with a creaky elevator barely big enough for three people.
“The balcony was tiny, can you imagine? But it looked straight out over the embankment,” he told Nikita. “You walk outside in the morning and the whole city is moving below you.”
“You’re lucky,” Polina sighed. “We’ve been trying to get to the seaside for three years.”
“You only live once,” Yegor said solemnly, conveniently forgetting to mention who had paid for that once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Alisa brought Raisa Pavlovna a scarf from Paris—thin, pearl-gray, with a long fringe.
Raisa turned it over in her hands, held it against her shoulder, then removed it.
“Thank you, of course,” she said. “But where am I supposed to wear something like this? To the grocery store to buy potatoes?”
“Wear it whenever you want. Beauty doesn’t need an occasion.”
“Beauty costs money, Alisa dear. You two would have been better off not wasting so much. You should save.”
“We do save. And we live at the same time. Apparently, the two things are compatible.”
The scarf went into the wardrobe, onto the highest shelf beside several pieces of fabric that had been waiting for their moment for about fifteen years.
A month later, Alisa stopped by Raisa Pavlovna’s place to drop off some medicine and found that she had guests.
Raisa’s brother, Arkady Pavlovich, was there with his wife Zhanna and their daughter Vika. The apartment was noisy with conversation about their country house, seedlings, and gardening.
“So what’s new with you young people?” Arkady Pavlovich boomed.
“I got promoted,” Alisa said simply. “Starting next week, I’ll have my own office and three people reporting to me.”
“Wow!” Her uncle practically rose from his chair. “When did you graduate from university?”
“Two years ago.”
“And you’re already a manager? Maybe a small one, but still a manager! Did you hear that, Zhanna? Now that’s progress.”
“I heard,” Zhanna said with a smile.
Raisa Pavlovna silently poured the fruit drink.
She had nothing to say.
Her son had sat down at his desk after university and had remained there ever since—steady, quiet, without taking a single step forward.
After the door closed behind Alisa, Zhanna put down her glass.
“Raisa, you understand, don’t you?” she said quietly. “Two years. Three employees. Her own office.”
“I understand,” Raisa Pavlovna replied. “Believe me, Zhanna, I understand everything.”
“Things like that, dear, usually aren’t decided inside the office. More like… on the way to it.”
“You mean through someone’s bed.”
“I didn’t say that. You did.”
Yegor was already trembling with anger by the time he got home.
“Why did you have to tell everyone about your office?”
“They asked me. I answered.”
“They asked what was new, not for you to tell everyone how amazing you are!”
“Yegor, the new thing in my life is the office. Not a kitten or a new iron.”
“You wanted to humiliate me! In front of my uncle, in front of Zhanna! So everyone could sit there thinking, ‘Look how successful his wife is—and what is the husband?’”
“I wasn’t trying to humiliate you. I didn’t even disgrace your family name while talking about it, imagine that.”
“You think this is funny?!”
“A little. You’re seriously angry because your wife didn’t fail.”
“Normal women don’t show off!”
“Normal women come in all kinds,” Alisa said, sitting on the arm of the chair. “Yegor, having a career isn’t a crime. A career is ambition with knowledge inside it. If there’s nothing inside, then yes, that’s embarrassing. But there’s plenty inside mine. I checked.”
“Was that supposed to be a dig at me?”
“I was talking about myself. You decided to try it on.”
He grabbed his jacket, shoved his feet into his shoes, and went to spend the night at his mother’s.
Alisa stood in the hallway for a moment, picked up a bag that had fallen from its hook, and went to bed.
The following day Nikita and Polina dropped by unexpectedly, cheerful and carrying a cake.
“Where’s the man of the house?”
“At his mother’s.” Alisa shrugged. “He’s offended.”
“By what?” Nikita asked, confused.
“I got promoted. He thinks I announced it too loudly. His mother knows now too, and apparently that counts as an aggravating circumstance.”
Polina snorted. Nikita grunted.
They ate the cake and parted on peaceful terms.
That evening Yegor returned home and exploded the moment he entered.
“Nikita called me. You told him too?!”
“He asked where you were. I decided not to lie and tell him you’d gone hunting.”
“You’re doing this deliberately! You’re going around the whole city telling everyone I’m nobody!”
“I’m telling everyone that I’m somebody. Those are actually two different sentences. They don’t even have the same subject.”
“Stop trying to be clever!”
“Then I’ll have to become stupid, and that takes longer.” Alisa picked up a towel. “I’m taking a shower. Feel free to keep shouting without me. The walls are thick.”
The bathroom door closed.
Yegor remained standing in the middle of the room, full of words that had nowhere to go.
Being ignored burned worse than any answer she could have given him.
His phone vibrated.
His mother.
“Well? Have you made up?” Raisa Pavlovna asked.
“Not really.”
“And that’s good. Yegor, you’re a grown man. Listen to me for once. Two years out of university and she already has her own office? That doesn’t happen.”
“Mom…”
“Oh, it happens, of course. Just not because of what’s in her head. Because of what happens in someone’s bed. There’s no other way, son. No other way.”
He didn’t answer.
He ended the call and spent the rest of the evening staring at one spot in silence, unable to bring himself to start a conversation.
The next morning, Yegor gave Alisa an ultimatum.
He had rehearsed it beforehand and delivered it clearly:
“Here’s how it’s going to be. From now on, when other people are around, you never tell anyone what you do or what position you hold. Not one word. Understand?”
“All right.”
“What do you mean, ‘all right’?”
“I agree.” Alisa buttoned her coat. “Silent as a fish in aspic.”
Yegor walked around all day as pleased as though it were his birthday.
He called his mother to report his victory. She congratulated him, then added:
“You’ve celebrated enough. Remember how she got that office. Run from her, Yegor darling, before it’s too late. Otherwise you’ll never live down the shame.”
That evening Alisa entered the apartment wearing an expression he had never seen on her face before.
She wasn’t angry.
She was composed.
“How was work?” Yegor asked brightly.
Silence.
“Alisa, I asked you a question.”
She took off her coat, hung it up, and adjusted the collar.
Then she took out her phone, dialed a number, and turned on the speaker.
“Good evening, Raisa Pavlovna. I need your advice.”
“I’m listening,” came the wary reply.
“Tell me, how should I live from now on? Maybe I should ask them to move me back to my old position? So I won’t humiliate your son.”
“There!” Raisa Pavlovna exclaimed happily. “That’s my clever girl! Finally, a sensible thought. The man should come first, and the woman should be beside him.”
“Excellent. I just want to clarify the details. I’m a precise person. My salary would fall by about seventy percent.”
“So what? You’ll manage.”
“We will. Which means no more trips to the country house at my expense—I’ve been paying to transport building materials there. No more financial help for you either: no medicine, no repairs to your room. And no more trips abroad with your son. Paris was the last one.”
There was a rustling sound on the other end of the line.
Yegor, standing in the doorway, turned pale.
“Are you throwing everything you’ve done for me in my face?!” Raisa Pavlovna shrieked.
“I’m doing the math. It’s boring, but useful. And another question: you were the one who objected to my promotion, weren’t you?”
“I was only telling the truth!”
“Excellent. Then let’s be direct. Are you the one telling relatives and friends that I got my position by sleeping with someone?”
A second of silence.
Then came the attack.
“How else could you have gotten it?! Two years, and already your own office?! Do you think I’m an idiot? You’ve disgraced my son in front of everyone, you shameless little hussy! Everyone understands what happened. Everyone has known for ages…”
Alisa ended the call in the middle of the sentence.
The phone in her hand went silent as abruptly as a radio being switched off.
“Yegor. Do you think that too?”
He raised his chin.
Everything inside him was boiling—the previous day, all those conversations, the scarf, Paris, the trip he hadn’t paid for.
“Yes! I do! I’m ashamed, I’m disgusted, and I’m angry. Is that clear enough for you? I walk around not knowing where to look because I’m so embarrassed!”
“All right,” Alisa said with a nod. “Then here are the facts. My boss is a woman. Inga Leonidovna is sixty-five years old. She reached retirement age years ago, but they refuse to let her go because there are probably five minds like hers in the entire country. And her husband, Boris Semyonovich, has worked in the same department as her, at the desk beside hers, for forty years.”
Yegor opened and closed his hand as though trying to catch the air.
“I… I was told…”
“You were told something and grabbed onto it. Do you know why? Because the version where your wife is intelligent requires you to move forward yourself. The version where your wife is immoral requires nothing from you. That one is cheaper. You can carry it around without ever getting out of your chair.”
“I’m not jealous!”
“You are. You bragged about my honors diploma while it was lying in a drawer. The moment that diploma started earning money, you got scared. Turns out the diploma grew legs.”
“Alisa, listen…”
She began speaking very quietly, and something about that quietness made him feel uneasy.
“I don’t need a husband who is afraid of his wife. I don’t need a husband who accuses his wife of cheating without a shred of evidence. And I don’t need a husband who stands by while his own mother spreads filth about his wife.”
“What are you…”
“So here’s the conclusion: I don’t need you, Yegor. Pack your things and leave my apartment. Where you go is irrelevant to me. You failed to qualify for the position of husband.”
The phone rang again.
Raisa Pavlovna, furious and nearly screaming.
“Don’t you dare hang up on me! You have to—”
“You’re absolutely right,” Alisa interrupted evenly. “I will no longer humiliate your son with my career. But I’m not quitting my job. I’m firing Yegor from his position as my husband. Effective today.”
She ended the call.
The silence on the other end must have been deafening.
Yegor followed her around the apartment, talking, explaining, beginning sentences and losing track of them halfway through.
Alisa went into the bathroom. Then she chopped vegetables for herself and turned on some music.
An hour later, he walked out onto the landing with no suitcase, no bag, just the jacket he was wearing.
He had decided he would return tomorrow. They would talk. He would apologize.
Maybe she really hadn’t cheated.
Maybe he could even let her tell whoever she wanted that she was a manager.
The next day, his key wouldn’t turn.
The lock had been changed.
Alisa’s phone remained calmly and politely silent.
At his mother’s apartment, the entire hallway was filled with bags—jackets, shirts, chargers, sneakers, and a box containing his certificates and awards.
Nikita stopped by that evening.
He looked at the bags, understood everything, and asked nothing.
“It happens,” he said, patting Yegor on the shoulder. “Hang in there.”
“You’re not even going to tell me what a great guy I am?”
“No. But I’m not going to lecture you either. There are already enough people around to do that.” Nikita reached the doorway, then turned around. “By the way, Polina got promoted. They gave her her own department. You know what I’ve been doing? Going around telling everyone. I’m incredibly proud of her.”
The door closed.
Yegor sat in his childhood bedroom, where his diplomas and certificates still hung on the wall—awards from academic competitions, contests, reminders of the person he had once promised to become.
Paper.
Glass.
Dust along the edges of the frames.
He stared at them and finally understood something very simple.
He had had a woman who loved him, a woman who was pulling both of them forward and inviting him to come with her.
But instead of walking beside her, he had tried to cut her down so that he could feel taller.
From the hallway came Raisa Pavlovna’s voice:
“Yegor darling, dinner!”
He didn’t answer.
